Read our Year Report 2023 here. 

Since 2023, all Belgian Botanical gardens and arboreta are putting their plant collections online on one single platform: botanicalcollections.be. 

We are proud to have contributed to this important research program that maps endangered Magnolias within plant collections and lists the needs to protect more than 330 Magnolia species.   You can consult this publication via the BGCI website. Arboretum Wespelaar is also part of the Global Conservation Consortium for Magnolia in order to help with the conservation of endangered Magnolias. 

Our “Virtual Tour” has had an update and is back online! Now also available in English (previously only Dutch and French). You’ll find the link on our homepage here above by clicking on the green button "Virtual Tour", or can use the direct link here.  

You can explore the different parts of Arboretum Wespelaar through drone-taken air photographs. You can select the different parts of the Arboretum (Magnolia Meadow, Marnef Wood, etc.), see which plants are planted in which plot and read more about those plants  in the left column. You’ll also find our selections mapped out, and some of our red-listed species.

Enjoy!

The Red List of Acer (revised and extended) is now available on the BGCI website. This Red List gives the conservation status of all 158 maple or Acer species. The report reveals that 1 in 5 species of Acer are threatened with extinction in the wild. The Foreword is written by Koen Camelbeke, director of Arboretum Wespelaar. Arboretum Wespelaar, which has a big collection of maples and also focuses on red-listed tree species, was one of the participating institutions in the creation of this red list. The arboretum holds a large collection of Acer images and high resolution scans by Jan De Langhe (By Jan De Langhe, dendrologist at Ghent University Botanical Garden, in collaboration with Arboretum Wespelaar), which were used in this publication.

One plant - one name! Koen Camelbeke of Arboretum Wespelaar is trying to achieve this ultimate goal for the maples (genus Acer) together with an international team of maple experts. Want to know more? Click here for the article that appeared on the Maple Society Website.